Beanie Sigel cleared of attempted murder charge

Beanie Sigel cleared of attempted murder charge
PHILADELPHIA - A Philadelphia jury acquitted American rapper Beanie Sigel of charges of attempted murder on Monday.

The 31-year-old rapper was accused of shooting Terrence Speller in a crowded city street in July 2003. This trial was the second one for this incident and followed closely on the heels of Sigel's release from a federal prison for drug and firearms possession. The three-day trial took place just a few weeks after Sigel, whose real name is Dwight Grant was out of prison after serving 10 months on the drugs charge. "Only fools or people who got caught are in jail. Take that to heart.

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If you can learn what not to do from me, then I'm good with that," Sigel had told Rolling Stone before beginning his prison term. A previous trial for the same offence was held in April last year and was declared a mistrial due to a hung jury. In the court, Speller testified that he had initially told the police that he was shot during a robbery, as he was frightened to tell the truth. The next day he accused Siegel of shooting him, "I wanted to make sure I was going to be all right and my family was going to be all right," Speller told the court.

Siegel was first noticed in Jay-Z's Vol. 2: Hard Knock Life in 1998. He followed it up with his best seller "The Truth" in 2000. The next two albums "The Reason" in 2001 and "The B. Coming" were at the top five spots in the Billboard album chart.

Siegel whose songs depict and glorify violence in the form of guns and drugs is no stranger to prison as he has a long record. He faces another trial for an incident in which he allegedly broke a man's eye socket in January 2003.